Why the Star-Spangled Banner has fifteen stripes

The Star-Spangled Banner has fifteen stripes because it was made under a national flag design that counted fifteen states with both stars and stripes. It is not a mistaken version of today's flag. The surviving Fort McHenry banner belongs to a period when Congress had expanded the design beyond the original thirteen stripes—and had not yet returned it to thirteen.

Why there are two dates: 1794 and 1795

The law approved January 13, 1794 prescribed fifteen alternating red and white stripes and fifteen white stars on blue. Its effective date was May 1, 1795. Those are different milestones: one is the approval of the law, the other is the start of the design it required.

The change reflected the addition of Vermont and Kentucky to the original thirteen states. The act set a particular count of fifteen; it did not establish an automatic rule adding a stripe every time another state joined. That distinction explains why the banner made in 1813 still carried fifteen stripes.

A working flag, made by a team in Baltimore

Mary Pickersgill was a professional flag maker, not simply a name attached to a patriotic legend. In 1813, Fort McHenry's commander, Major George Armistead, commissioned a large garrison flag and a smaller storm flag. The National Park Service describes the garrison flag's original size as 30 by 42 feet, with the storm flag measuring 17 by 25 feet. The large flag's stripes were two feet wide.

That scale required a team. The Smithsonian's object record identifies Pickersgill's daughter, two nieces and Grace Wisher, an African American indentured servant, among the teenagers who helped make it. Naming those workers gives a more accurate picture than imagining one person sewing the entire banner alone.

NPS describes wool bunting pieced together for the flags and assembly space on a nearby brewery floor. Those construction details explain the practical problem: this was an enormous textile that had to be laid out, joined and handled. A modern reproduction's materials and dimensions should not be mistaken for the original object's construction.

The flag and the song are related, but different things

The Smithsonian records that soldiers raised the large flag at Fort McHenry on September 14, 1814, after the British attack. Francis Scott Key saw the American flag still there and wrote the words associated with it. The artifact is the Star-Spangled Banner; the song bearing that name grew from the experience.

Be careful with the familiar claim that this enormous flag flew throughout the rainy bombardment. NPS distinguishes the large garrison flag from the smaller storm flag and notes that many historians believe the storm flag flew during the rain. The smaller flag has not survived. The surviving banner should not be made to answer a question the evidence leaves uncertain.

Why the stripes returned to thirteen

The act approved April 4, 1818 established thirteen horizontal stripes and twenty stars, effective July 4 that year. It also provided for a new star when another state entered the Union, with the addition taking effect on the following July 4.

This separated the two jobs in the design. The stripes recalled the original thirteen states, while the stars could reflect a growing Union. The fifteen-stripe banner therefore captures a specific chapter in the flag's development. Its unusual count is part of what makes it historically informative.

How to look at the banner today

Start with the museum's record for object AF.13649, credited as a gift of Eben Appleton. It identifies the actual artifact, rather than a later print, souvenir or reproduction with a similar title. When comparing images, read the caption and object identification before assuming you are looking at the original flag.

Remember three things: the law was approved in 1794, its fifteen-stripe design began in 1795, and the Fort McHenry flag was made in 1813. The return to thirteen stripes came in 1818. Those dates turn an apparent oddity into a readable piece of American history.

If you would like a historical design for your own display, browse FORTISVEX historical flags. Compare the exact design, dimensions and construction on each listing. A contemporary display flag is a reproduction, not the museum artifact.